Steve Jobs a Conservative? Say it ain’t so……

Since Steve Jobs Biography hit stores shelves today I want to share a story that I came across last week.  It was an article of where the former Apple CEO warned President Barack Obama that he was headed to a one term presidency.  The news of that must have sent the Obots, the Occupiers, and Appleheads into a frenzy.  Ironically enough, those three groups are mostly one in the same.  Fear not people, Steve Jobs will not need to be removed from your mantle because he had not gone over to the dark side of logic.  He was a high profile businessman that needed to shake some sense into his commander and chief.  Also, from the reports, it seems like Jobs was also trying to knock the POTUS down a peg or two.  To be quite honest, there is nothing wrong with that.  It is the right of every American citizen to not only question their elected officials but to call them out, no matter how public it gets, given the opportunity.

Jobs spurn of the president could be viewed as a stroking of his own ego, it’s quite possible, but I highly doubt it.  Jobs has always been viewed as an innovative icon with a false view of “sticking it to the man”.  What people fail to realize about Jobs was that he was “the man”.  First and foremost Jobs was a businessman.  Was he changing the world with his products? Absolutely.  His products have revolutionized the way the world uses portable electronics.  However, Jobs got very rich off all of these innovations and this is where he took the president to task.  As the head of a multi-billion dollar company he should take the president to task.

His upcoming biography written by Walter Isaacson, goes into detail Jobs meeting with President Obama in a San Francisco hotel.  How the two came to meet is a different subject I will get to.  In the meeting Jobs warned the president that he was headed towards a one term presidency because his agenda is not friendly to businesses and it was making the United States fall behind Asian companies in manufacturing due to the tough regulations and unnecessary costs of building factories in country.  Although his statements are true, the president cannot be completely held responsible, those regulations have been in place for longer than Obama has been in Washington.  However, the attacks on businesses to pay taxes, the instability of the Healthcare Reform, and President Obama’s pledge to “spread the wealth”, makes him an adversary of business.  That was what Jobs was eluding to when he came at the president.

But that’s not all that Job’s took President Obama to task on.  He told him that there was no hope for education reform while there were still teachers unions.  Jobs said that principals, or school officials should hire and fire teachers based on merit.  He also said that the school day and the school year should be extended.  Unless the education steers away from “union work rules” there was no hope to fix the education problem in the United States.  Ouch!  This would make people think that Jobs had gone conservative more than telling the president he was a one termer.  He attacked at the core of the Democratic Party by going at bigger government oversight and organized labor.

I still want to make it clear that Jobs did not jump ship.  He like many Americans was not happy with the direction that the United States is headed. The president needs to understand that he was a media darling in 2008 and he rode that to a point where he has become cocky with the way he presents himself.  He has been acting like an untouchable and Jobs put him in his place.  The meeting between Jobs and Obama almost never happened because Jobs insisted that President Obama call and personally invite him to this meeting.  When both sides did not budge, Jobs would have not gone.  The president was not that important to him.  At the urging of his wife, Jobs relented and went to the meeting.  Not before speaking out against the menu and coming with a full arsenal to shove down the president’s throat.

If Steve Jobs were still with us he would still be a liberal. So Appleheads don’t fret, the icon is still safe, you can crawl back into your Occutents in whatever city you are in and protest for something you probably don’t even understand.  But keep in mind that Steve Jobs wasn’t wrong. To understand what he said and the stance he took was to understand the type of man that Steve Jobs always was, what made him Steve Jobs.  He was a very cruel man with a bad temper, if you were involved with him.  He was known for not only berating employees but regular people he came into contact with.  He always wanted to be around people that strived for perfection, and this is what he was doing when talking to the president.  He commands perfection from the president and had no issue telling him what he thought, basically treating him like any other person that he ever came into contact with.  It didn’t help President Obama that Jobs had zero respect for authority, feeling that the rules did not apply to him, which probably led to Jobs candor with the president.

I’ve never truly understood the fascination with the Apple phenomenon but I have always found Steve Jobs to be fascinating.  He went from not worrying about money because he was dead broke to not worrying about money because he so much of it.  He did not get aid from the government.  He used a sabbatical in India and a great idea.  That great idea turned into the second most profitable company in the world.  The meeting with President Obama just adds to my fascination with Steve Jobs.
Until next time
3D
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